Lake
Managua
Managua
Las Salinas
POPOYO
Pacific
Ocean
Caribbean
Sea
Lake
Nicaragua
Rivas
COSTA RICA
N America
Central
America
Area
shown
S America
Popoyo is located
on the Pacific coast
of Nicaragua.
fast as I could because it was getting darker.
As I neared my house, it was completely
dark, and no one was in the streets.
Approaching fast behind me was a guy
with his hood drawn over his head and his
hands in his pockets, looking down. He
was about to catch up, and I thought maybe
he’s just in a hurry to get home to see his
newborn baby or catch the evening news.
In the moment before he grabbed me, I
thought entirely about knives. I imagined a
blade with a black, worn handle slicing
simply into my side, and I saw blood soaking into my white linen shirt and me
squeezing it out, to make it go away, and
then blood on the pavement, dripping a
second before me. And it was thinking
about the knife in his hand that made me
swipe him with my purple umbrella. I
aimed for his hands and pictured the knife
falling into the street with him, but there
was no knife, just an inexperienced
teenager with cold hands, out for something I can’t understand, and I hope he
never does it again; I hope he doesn’t get better at it. I hope he doesn’t attack on a
sunny day when I don’t carry an umbrella.
There was a bar in Antigua that had a
dusty purple glow with creamy walls and
tapestries and star lights that hung in the
corners and cast star-shapes on our bodies.
The bartender was from New York, had
been around for a while, he didn’t specify
time. Didn’t matter. A tack board beside the
drink specials had a poster of Bush with
horns and fliers for apartments to rent and
a half-piece of copy paper written on in
black: On our way down south searching for
untouched surf spots. Looking for flexible easy-going SURFERS to share the gas to our first
destination — EL SALVADOR. The next
night I met the crew: a South African, an
Italian and an Englishman. We decided to
leave Guatemala the next week.
Ojala means “hopeful” in Spanish, and
this is what we named the 1984 Jeep —
we hoped it would make it into El Salvador. It had a rusted interior and peeling
paint. The car seats were red and salty from
sweat and sea. We did sweat — without an
air-conditioner; we rolled down the windows and floated between mountains like a
plane in a green sky, our contrail — the
highway behind; and the sky — jungle
